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AN    EXHIBITION    ILLUSTRATING  THE 
HISTORY  OF  THE  WATER  SUPPLY  OF 
THE  CITY  OF  NEW  YORK  FROM 

1639    TO  I917 

HELD  AT  THE  NEW  YORK  PUBLIC  LIBRARY 
MAY  1  TO  NOVEMBER  6,  191 7 


SECTION  OF  CITY  TUNNEL  OF  CATSKILL  AQUEDUCT  WITH  SHAFT  UNDER  WORTH  MONUMENT 


THE  NEW  YORK 
PUBLIC  LIBRARY 
1917 


form  |i-ih)ii  Ix  1-10-17  to] 


AN  EXHIBITION  ILLUSTRATING  THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 
WATER  SUPPLY  OF  THE  CITY  OF  NEW  YORK 
FROM  1639  TO  1917 

SOME  months  ago  the  Mayor  of  New  York  City  appointed  a  general  com- 
mittee of  five  hundred  citizens  to  arrange  for  a  celebration  in  observance 
of  the  virtual  completion  of  the  Catskill  Aqueduct,  which  is  to  supply  water 
for  all  the  boroughs  of  the  city.  On  account  of  the  war  it  was  decided  to  post- 
pone this  celebration,  which  had  been  planned  for  April  or  May.  In  order, 
however,  that  there  might  be  some  early  observance  of  the  completion  of  this 
great  undertaking  —  which  involves  such  remarkable  feats  of  engineering  and 
concerns  so  vitally  the  health  of  millions  of  people  —  The  New  York  Public 
Library  decided  to  carry  out,  in  co-operation  with  the  Mayor's  committee,  an 
exhibition  previously  planned.  This  exhibition,  which  opened  on  May  1  and 
v\- i  11  remain  on  view  until  November  6,  illustrates  the  most  striking  events  in 
the  history  of  the  development  of  New  York  City's  water  supply,  from  1639 
to  the  present  time. 

In  the  days  of  the  Dutch  occupation  of  Manhattan  Island,  when  there 
were  only  a  few  hundred  settlers,  water  was  obtained  from  local  streams, 
ponds,  and  springs.  These  natural  water  supplies  are  shown  on  a  recently 
discovered  manuscript  survey,  made  in  1639,  of  the  region  of  the  present 
city  of  Greater  New  York  and  the  neighboring  New  Jersey  towns.  The  first 
recorded  project  for  a  public  well,  to  be  located  in  Broadway,  dates  back  to 
1658,  but  was  not  carried  out.  By  1660,  when  the  houses  in  New  Amsterdam, 
as  shown  by  an  original  manuscript  census,  numbered  only  342,  there  were 
a  few  private  wells  that  had  been  dug  in  some  of  the  yards.  They  are  shown  in 
a  remarkable  bird's-eye  view  of  the  city,  made  in  that  year  and  recently  found 
in  Italy.  These  wells  were  all  south  of  the  present  Wall  Street,  the  best  known 
being  those  in  the  brewery  yards  of  Oloff  Stevensen  Van  Cortlandt  and  Jacob 
Van  Couwenhoven  in  Brewers  (now  Stone)  Street,  and  in  the  yard  of  Jacobus 
Kip,  the  first  city  clerk,  who  lived  on  what  is  now  Broad  Street.  There  was 
also  a  well  in  the  yard  of  the  excise  collector,  Paulus  vander  Beeck. 

In  1664,  an  English  fleet  anchored  before  New  Amsterdam  and  demanded 
its  surrender.  Peter  Stuyvesant,  after  some  parleying,  surrendered  without 
resistance,  being  forced  to,  he  said,  because  there  was  no  well  within  the  fort 
and  its  supply  of  water  consisted  of  but  twenty  or  twenty-four  barrels  that 
had  been  removed  from  ships  in  the  harbor.  After  the  city  had  been  taken 
by  the  English  it  was  known  as  New  York,  and  the  new  governor,  Richard 

[  3  ] 


4  THE  NEW  YORK  PUBLIC  LIBRARY 

Nicolls,  took  up  his  residence  in  the  fort.  Shortly  after,  in  the  summer  of 
1667,  he  had  a  well  dug  within  the  fort  which  yielded  good  water  —  much 
to  the  astonishment  of  the  Dutch  people,  who  had  not  believed  such  a  thing 
possible.  Later  a  well  was  dug  in  front  of  the  gate  of  the  fort,  at  the  present 
Bowling  Green,  and  the  pump  placed  over  it  was  the  first  pump  recorded  in 
the  history  of  the  city.  The  first  stone  well  was  made  in  the  yard  of  the 
original  City  Hall,  at  Pearl  Street  and  Coenties  Alley,  in  1671.  The  growth 
of  the  town  made  it  necessary  to  increase  the  supply  of  water,  so  in  1677  the 
Common  Council  ordered  a  number  of  community  wells  to  be  dug  in  the 
middle  of  the  streets  at  certain  designated  places. 

Singularly  enough,  wells,  pumps,  and  springs  continued  to  supply  all  the 
water  used  in  the  city  for  more  than  a  hundred  years,  though  the  water  became 
insufficient  in  quantity  and  very  inferior  in  quality.  As  early  as  November, 
1748,  a  Swedish  traveller  named  Peter  Kalm  remarked  that  the  well-water 
of  the  city  was  so  poor  that  even  the  horses  balked  at  drinking  it,  and  that 
the  only  good  water  was  obtained  from  a  large  spring  a  short  distance  from 
town,  which  the  inhabitants  used  for  their  tea  and  for  kitchen  purposes.  This 
spring  was  afterwards  covered  with  a  pump,  and  its  water  conveyed  in  wagons 
and  sold  throughout  the  city.  It  was  located  at  Chatham  and  Roosevelt 
Streets,  and  was  long  known  as  the  Tea  Water  Pump  —  a  prominent  as  well 
as  a  useful  landmark  of  old  New  York.  A  painting  in  the  exhibition  shows 
the  pump  as  it  was  in  1807. 

The  first  plan  for  erecting  a  storage  reservoir  was  undertaken  in  1774- 
1776  by  an  engineer  named  Christopher  Colles.  Paper  money  was  issued  to 
float  the  project.  A  large  well,  thirty  feet  in  diameter,  was  dug,  and  a  reservoir 
erected  with  a  capacity  of  twenty  thousand  hogsheads  of  water,  on  the  east 
side  of  Broadway,  between  the  present  White  and  Pearl  Streets.  The  water 
was  pumped  into  the  reservoir  by  a  steam  engine  to  be  conveyed  through  the 
streets  in  wooden  pipes  made  of  pine  logs.  This  undertaking,  known  as  the 
New  York  Water  Works,  failed  on  account  of  the  occupation  of  the  city  by 
the  British  army  in  September,  1776. 

Most  of  the  plans  for  an  increased  water  supply,  before  the  old  Croton 
Aqueduct  was  settled  upon,  provided  for  taking  the  water  from  a  pond  known 
as  the  Collect,  in  the  region  where  are  now  the  Tombs  and  Criminal  Court 
building  on  Centre  Street.  Plans  of  this  pond  are  shown  in  the  exhibition 
and  also  documents  of  Thomas  Poppleton,  a  Baltimore  surveyor,  who  came 
to  New  York  in  1812  to  aid  a  city  committee  in  supervising  the  drainage  of 
the  Collect  and  the  Lispenard  Meadows,  which  had  become  unsanitary  and  a 
menace  to  the  public  health. 


HISTORY  OF  THE  WATER  SUPPLY  OF  THE  CITY  OF  NEW  YORK 


Aaron  Burr  and  his  friends  succeeded  in  obtaining  a  charter  from  the 
legislature  on  April  2,  1799,  which  incorporated  the  Manhattan  Company, 
ostensibly  for  the  purpose  of  supplying  wholesome  drinking  water,  yet  with 
a  joker  that  gave  unlimited  banking  privileges.  The  passage  of  the  bill  aroused 
a  good  deal  of  contention  at  the  time,  and  the  opposition  continued  for  many 
years  thereafter.  The  company  drew  water  from  the  Collect  and  stored  it  in 
a  reservoir  on  Chambers  Street,  whence,  by  means  of  hollow  logs,  it  was  con- 
veyed through  certain  streets  to  the  customers.  In  the  exhibition  are  shown 
the  original  legislative  records,  the  oaths  of  office  of  the  first  president  and 
first  cashier  of  the  corporation,  and  an  autograph  subscription  list  of  stock- 
holders, containing  the  names  of  many  famous  old  New  York  families,  among 
them  the  Livingstons,  Rutgers,  Brashers,  De  Peysters,  and  Speyers,  as  well 
as  such  prominent  men  as  General  Horatio  Gates,  General  Marinus  YVillett, 
and  De  W  itt  Clinton.  There  is  also  on  view  what  is  perhaps  the  best  extant 
example  of  the  wooden  water  main,  with  cut-outs  and  house  connection.  This 
exhibit,  lent  by  the  Engineers'  Club,  was  dug  up  in  June,  1915,  during  sub- 
way excavating. 

As  the  city  entered  the  second  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century,  past 
epidemics  and  imminent  scourges  of  yellow  fever  or  cholera  made  evident  the 
urgent  need  of  a  better  water  supply.  Several  water  companies  were  chartered 
by  the  legislature,  but  none  was  successful.  In  1829  the  first  public  water 
works  was  erected  at  Broadway  and  13th  Street.  It  consisted  of  an  elevated 
tank  with  a  capacity  of  about  230,000  gallons,  into  which  the  water  was 
pumped  by  a  steam  engine.  The  quality  of  this  water  deteriorated,  however, 
and  Samuel  Stevens,  president  of  the  new  Board  of  Aldermen,  urged  the 
necessity  of  a  better  supply.  A  report  was  made  to  the  Board  of  Aldermen 
in  1831  by  Judge  Wright  and  Canvass  White,  and  another  the  following  year 
by  Colonel  De  Witt  Clinton,  the  latter  report  being  a  landmark  in  the  docu- 
mentary history  of  the  city's  water  supply.  On  February  26,  1833,  the  legis- 
lature passed  the  first  act  authorizing  a  new  supply,  and  with  it  begins  all 
legislation  with  respect  to  the  building  of  the  old  Croton  Aqueduct.  The  final 
enabling  act  was  passed  on  May  2,  1834,  and  in  1837  the  actual  construction 
of  the  Aqueduct  was  begun.  It  was  built  in  four  divisions,  and  connected 
Croton  Dam  with  the  Murray  Hill  distributing  reservoir,  now  the  site  of 
the  Central  Building  of  The  New  York  Public  Library.  This  reservoir  was 
completed  in  1842,  and  the  event  was  marked  by  a  great  civic  celebration  on 
October  14,  1842.  The  exhibition  shows  the  documents  in  relation  to  this 
undertaking,  and  numerous  views  of  the  Murray  Hill  reservoir  and  the  Central 
Park  reservoir,  constructed  in  1857-1862,  as  well  as  of  the  High  Bridge  con- 


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THE  NEW  YORK  PUBLIC  LIBRARY 


duit  and  reservoir,  finished  in  November,  1848.  Six  showcases  are  filled 
with  the  reports,  maps,  profiles,  sectional  drawings,  and  other  objects,  illus- 
trative of  the  history  of  the  old  Croton  Aqueduct,  to  the  year  1880. 

In  three  showcases  are  presented  the  publications  bearing  upon  the  exten- 
sion of  the  Croton  Aqueduct,  beginning  with  the  reports  and  plans  of  Chief 
Engineer  Isaac  Newton,  made  in  1881  and  1882.  The  enabling  act  for  the 
new  Croton  Aqueduct  became  a  law  on  June  1,  1883.  Construction  com- 
menced in  January,  1885,  and  water  reached  the  Central  Park  reservoir  in 
July,  1890.  The  Croton  Dam  was  completed  in  1907,  and  the  Jerome  Park 
reservoir  was  so  far  completed  in  1906  that  the  west  basin  was  put  in  service. 

It  soon  became  apparent  that  this  new  water  supply  could  not  be  increased 
so  as  to  keep  up  with  the  great  growth  of  population,  and  there  was  much 
discussion  by  civic  and  other  bodies  of  possible  remedial  measures.  A  private 
water  company  sought  to  make  a  contract  with  the  city  for  an  additional  sup- 
ply, and  endeavored  to  preempt  the  outlying  watersheds.  These  controversies 
over  the  Ramapo  Water  Company  are  remembered  by  the  present  generation. 
In  1899,  Governor  Roosevelt  brought  about  the  repeal  of  its  charter,  and  the 
city  was  then  free  to  look  for  relief  in  other  directions.  In  1897,  the  Manu- 
facturers' Association  of  the  City  of  Brooklyn  appointed  a  special  committee, 
of  which  Charles  N.  Chadwick  was  chairman.  This  committee  recommended, 
among  other  things,  that  plans  be  devised  "for  the  ultimate  sources  of  supply 
for  the  Greater  New  York  to  contemplate  a  period  of  not  less  than  fifty  years." 
In  1900,  John  R.  Freeman  made  to  the  Comptroller  of  the  city  a  report  which 
has  been  considered  one  of  the  most  influential  documents  in  the  whole  history 
of  New  York's  water  supply.  In  the  same  year  another  report  was  made  by  the 
Merchants'  Association.  A  special  commission  appointed  to  take  up  the  sub- 
ject reported  in  1903  to  the  head  of  the  Department  of  Water  Supply,  Gas 
and  Electricity.  The  growth  of  Brooklyn,  now  a  part  of  the  consolidated 
city,  produced  a  shortage  of  water  in  that  borough.  To  meet  these  various 
problems,  a  Board  of  Water  Supply  Commissioners  was  appointed  by  Mayor 
McClellan  in  1905,  under  authority  of  a  constitutional  amendment  passed  in 
November,  1904,  which  exempted  water  supply  bonds  from  the  debt  limit. 
This  legislation  cleared  the  way  for  the  Catskill  Aqueduct. 

The  printed  matter  relating  to  the  Catskill  Aqueduct,  including  the  con- 
tract books,  is  exhibited;  and  also  dozens  of  large  photographs  which  illustrate 
the  processes  of  construction  of  dams,  tunnels,  coverts,  bridges,  basins,  river 
crossings,  and  other  features,  such  as  contractors'  camps,  plants,  and  equip- 
ment. 

A  large  plaster  cast  model  is  shown  of  a  section  of  the  Kensico  Dam, 
which  is  situated  twenty-five  miles  north  of  New  York  City.    This  is  the 


HISTORY  OF  THE  WATER  SUPPLY  OF  THE  CITY  OF  NEW  YORK  7 

finest  dam  in  the  system,  and  is  1,843  feet  long,  with  a  maximum  height  of 
310  feet.  It  is  built  of  concrete,  faced  with  granite;  and  the  reservoir  has  a 
capacity  of  thirty-eight  billion  gallons. 

The  region  traversed  by  the  Catskill  Aqueduct  is  shown  by  geological 
maps  and  profiles,  which  demonstrate  the  difficulties  of  carrying  it  through 
bedrock  on  the  eighteen-mile  city  tunnel.  These  difficulties  are  further  illus- 
trated by  an  exhibit  —  lent  by  the  Board  of  Water  Supply  —  of  actual  bor- 
ings of  Yonkers  gneiss,  Inwood  limestone,  Fordham  gneiss,  Manhattan  schist, 
Ravenswood  granodiorite,  and  other  rock  formations.  The  Department  has 
also  lent  a  colored  relief  model  map  of  the  watersheds  from  the  Schoharie 
and  Esopus  to  Greater  New  York,  including  a  portion  of  New  Jersey.  This 
map  measures  1 1  feet  9  inches  by  5  feet  2  inches.  Its  horizontal  scale  is  a  mile 
to  an  inch,  and  the  vertical  scale  shows  an  elevation  of  one  inch  to  1,600  feet. 
The  different  watersheds  are  depicted  by  distinctive  colors;  the  route  of  the 
Aqueduct  is  indicated,  from  its  source  to  all  parts  of  the  city;  and  the  con- 
nections of  the  Catskill  Mountain  watersheds,  with  the  Croton,  Bronx  and 
Byram  watersheds,  and  the  Ridgewood  system  on  Long  Island,  are  shown. 
The  Board  of  Water  Supply  has  also  lent  a  profile  map  of  the  entire  Catskill 
water  system,  measuring  about  sixty-three  feet  in  length. 

In  1851,  there  was  much  discussion  of  Brooklyn's  water  supply  problem. 
On  June  3,  1853,  the  legislature  passed  an  act  which  provided  a  water  supply 
for  the  City  of  Brooklyn.  This  legislation,  as  well  as  reports  of  the  Long 
Island  Water  Works  Company,  the  Nassau  Water  Company,  the  Williams- 
burg Water  Works  Company,  the  Brooklyn  Water  Commissioners,  and  other 
water  supply  agencies  before  the  consolidation  of  Greater  New  York,  are 
systematically  arranged  in  two  showcases.  A  few  publications  about  Queens 
and  Richmond  Boroughs  are  also  shown,  and,  in  a  separate  showcase,  some 
general  histories  of  New  York's  water  supply. 

The  Board  of  Water  Supply  is  a  construction  board  exclusively,  and  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  administration  of  the  finished  system;  this  rests  with 
another  official  body,  the  Department  of  Water  Supply,  Gas  and  Electricity, 
which  made  its  first  annual  report  in  1898.  In  two  showcases  are  displayed 
all  the  reports  of  this  Department. 

This  exhibition  is  of  historical  interest  as  a  study  of  the  gradual  develop- 
ment of  one  of  the  most  important  of  the  public  utilities  of  the  City  of  New 
York.  It  is  of  additional  interest  and  value  because  it  enables  us  to  under- 
stand, in  some  measure,  how  the  problem  of  supplying  great  cities  with  ade- 
quate supplies  of  wholesome  water  is  being  solved  by  modern  engineering 
methods.  _  Victor  Hugo  Paltsits. 


PRINTED  AT  THE  NEW  YORK  PUBLIC  LIBRARY 


